I got a damaged Carbon Fibre hood from my boy who totalled his lancer, and the weave is still good but the clear chipped off a bit. A body shop wants to charge me $250 to repair it, but I want to know how hard of a DIY would be or should I just let them fix it?

 

get another quote, or try buffing it?

 

depending on how good you are at DYI, you can sand the area down to make it all uniform, then apply resin to it to build the clear back up. not sure what type of resin to use though. After you have built the resin, you will have to do a fine sanding to make it uniform with the rest and then polish it to give it that shine back.

 

^they use a clear epoxy resin I believe.... come to think of it what you suggested might work.. sand down the area to make it all uniform without disturbing the fibers. Once everything is smooth and uniform add the epoxy resin over the area and slowly build it up.. Its self leveling so you shouldn't have to worry to much.

once its built back up, sand flat again back down to original hood surface.

buff for glossy look...

maybe add a shot of clear coat for protection.

 

Or come up with a way to use vinyl to cover it up. Run a vinyl strip down either side of the hood at the raised section.

Vinyl would be the cheap way to cover it up untill you come up with a solution.

 

I glass surfboards, and have been testing and working with a carbon fiber cloth not sure if this would be the same application but ill give it a shot, so for this i would use definitely a clear epoxy resin. As for a DIY if you are fairly handy and can work in time constraints (as when adding hardener and additive to epoxy for it to be able to be sanded) it will cure very fast maybe 15 minutes. What i would tell you to do is first sand down the surrounding edges so you have a somewhat level surface, but is finely scratched from the sand paper so the epoxy will hold better. Make sure not to sand to hard or too much because if you get too deep and sand the carbon fiber cloth it will fray and not look good. Once you've got a finely scratched level surface mix your epoxy and just use a paint brush (one you dont plan on using again) to brush it on. You can apply multiple layers, on a surfboard we have what is called hot coat and gloss coat, they are obtained by using a catalyst making the epoxy hard (instead of semi tacky) and able to be sanded, make sure the last layer you do is a little higher than the hood itself and then sand it flush with the rest of the hood, then polish it out and it should be good to go. You shouldn't need a clear coat on top of it from my experience but if you feel more comfortable you can apply a clear coat. Hope this helps you out haha i may be too late.